#white savior trope

[shewhotellsstories]

I really hate that so many of the movies suggested when you google, "movies to watch when you need hope" are white savior films. Sorry, but watching The Help or The Blind Side will do the opposite of improving my mood.

[notalisonyet]

Viewed at a distance, Dances With Wolves might seem like an instance of the White Savior trope. But while Dunbar’s process of learning Lakota language and culture does parallel what happens in many white-savior stories, it’s an unavoidable fact that he does not save them. (To the contrary, they literally save him.)

In the middle of the film he does bring in rifles that allow the Lakota to fight off a Pawnee attack, but this is not the main story, and the Pawnee are never the true threat. This is one battle in a long, long inter-tribal conflict, and it makes a huge difference on one particular day, but soon enough the Pawnee will acquire rifles and the sides will again be more evenly matched. Dunbar only gives this group of Lakota advance access to a technology that we know, historically, radically altered the Plains cultures.

The true threat in the film is white encroachment—not merely the army and their forts, or white hunters and trappers, but more than anything white settlements. And before the final credits of the movie begin, in case we didn’t already know it from history, there’s a paragraph of text on the screen informing us that thirteen years later everything was over and the last of the Lakota surrendered. The film deliberately tells us that Dunbar/Dances With Wolves does not save them and that his efforts will not be enough.

[frank-o-meter]

An interesting article. Some key points:

Sully is the textbook example of a white savior.

The Na’vi are not portrayed as indigenous peoples. But instead colonialist’s fantasies of what indigenous people are like.

The Na’vi are are the embodiment of the Noble Savage” trope.

While intending to flatter the Na’vi, it patronizes them and depicts them as less than human.

[rhfffas]

elemental is such a white savior BS im so sick of it

male directors stop making male-gazing coming of age story of girls challenge

[writingwithcolor]

Avoiding the white savior of the kingdom

@ceo-of-angst asked:

Okay so I'm writing a fantasy series. There's two main kingdoms though there is a third but that one doesn't have to do anything with this ask. Both of them are likely as big as a continent each so there are different climates everywhere, therefore there's a lot of diversity even within one country. The issues mostly is between the two kingdoms nationality wise, as there's a war. The prince of one of the kingdoms kills his older brother to gain the throne. This is where the issue starts. They have a younger (half)sister who ends up leading a revolution bc of her brother's bad rule (famine, war, dictatorship and incantation or sentence to fight to the death in war to anyone who doesn't obbey the government etc), she's white, she's helped by my main cast who are all poc (one of them also from nobility) from the other kingdom and I don't want to accidently make it a white savior She's not my main character though if anything we only see into her pov bc of a difference between kingdoms in book 2. Most of the pov is on my main cast so I don't know how this could pay out.

Add diversity to the kingdom

There is a simple solution: don’t make one kingdom all-white or all-BIPOC. Add in diversity and mixed race. You seem to already be doing that, and it’s not an issue of race but rather tyranny. White saviorism is when only a white character can solve a problem for BIPOC and they’re seen as the hero. If it’s a team effort, where your protagonist is fallible but well-intentioned, you should be fine. -Jaya

Questions to ask yourself

This critique got levied at Tamora Pierce’s Trickster series, and it’s a pretty valid critique of the books—every time you have a white person as a figurehead of an otherwise-diverse movement, you’re going to start getting into why this white person, and why then?

It’s especially salient if you have the person come into an already-established rebellion movement. Is her involvement the thing that gets the privilege necessary to make the movement valid? What about her makes her the ideal top person in the organization?

Why is she white?

My first question is: why is she white? Is it related to colorism and classism? If yes, then why are you automatically making the leading group white if there’s so much diversity and so many other groups can trend extremely pale?

Why are the kingdoms so big?

My second question is: why are the kingdoms so big? It’s actually frighteningly hard to run a continent-sized country. If you’re attempting to make these single groups so big simply for ease of worldbuilding, and for diversity’s sake, know that a country does not have to be large to contain a multitude of groups. You are allowed to have political rivalry in a small area and still maintain diversity within it.

How much privilege is she willing to give up?

My third question is: how much privilege is she willing to give up? Is she trying to take the throne for herself, or is she trying to destroy all of the structures that gave her status in the first place? Because that question will determine how willing the PoC around her are going to be. Why would they support a ruler if they’ve been subjugated by that family, with no real promise she’s going to be any different once she gets in power?

On the flipside, why would she be willing to give up any of her privilege in the name of removing her brother from the throne, and what stops her from going off the deep end once she has the ability to control others?

It’s likely doable to make this situation read as less of a white saviour, but in order to do that you’ll likely need to wask yourself a lot of hard questions about your motives and the character arc you want to have with her.

People may see a white savior, regardless

And you’ll also have to ask yourself if you’ll be comfortable with never really being able to avoid some people calling this a white saviour plot. Even if you do “everything right” and follow every bit of advice you can, there’s always going to be some people who aren’t too thrilled that the person saving everyone is white.

So examine your motives, really nail down what you’re trying to show with this, and come to terms with not making everyone happy no matter what you do.

~Mod Lesya

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Helping my vulnerable Palestinian neighbors by sitting by idly while Donald "You’ve got to finish the problem" Trump is running for president! 👍

they said and shot themselves in the chest to martyr themselves for palestine to the horror of their palestinean refugee neighbors who DID NOT WANT THIS

this is ALL white saviorism is as some fiery individuals have demonstrated

[worldsewage]

Canon divergent so bad it makes canon look good.

[andreablog2]

I can’t believe people report get depressed after watching avatar and think it’s because the planet that’s meant to resemble earth is prettier than real life earth and not because it’s about colonialism. It’s actually a really dumb allegory for colonialism but it’s crazy how it is this commercially successful franchise that has a million sequels planned and a Disney theme park but it very explicitly is like…anti imperialist. I think mark fisher was right honestly.

[girluimfailing]

I'm labeled a Talia apologist because I don't support racist takes. Weird world we live in.

[thresholdbb]

Let’s talk about some of the problems with Star Trek. There are obviously real-world, behind-the-scenes reasons for many of the things we don’t like about Star Trek, and they’re usually pretty messed up. A very non-comprehensive list includes but certainly is not limited to:

Geordi being bad with women - racism

Geordi and Worf being the people of color on the cast but in heavy make-up - racism/othering

Harry Kim not getting a promotion - racism (see: model minority)

Klingons all being black/dark skinned (pre ~2001 at least cause that’s mostly what I know) but sometimes played by white actors - racism (see: blackface)

Chakotay’s whole deal - racism (see: noble savage)

The Kazon not assimilated by the Borg - anti-black racism

Deanna Troi not wearing a uniform - sexism

Seven of Nine not wearing a uniform - sexism

Jadzia getting killed off - sexism

Ezri’s poor reception - sexism again

Miles/Keiko/Kira’s baby situation - theres a post going around calling it misogynistic and it’s a pretty good take

B’Elanna being reduced to angry Klingon - Racism and sexism double whammy (see: spicy Latina)

Keiko being perceptually reduced to nagging wife even though that’s not what her actions necessarily portray - racism and sexism double whammy again

Beverly Crusher’s trill episode - homophobia

DS9 flirting with different expressions of sexuality (many characters) but barely committing - homophobia

Pike’s fate - ableism

DS9 Augments - ableism

Later iterations of Spock losing the Jewish coding - antisemitism

I’ll stop the list there since we can keep pulling examples out as nauseam and find examples of any of the -isms, any of the -phobias either within the media itself or behind the scenes but especially in some of the fan spaces. There’s plenty of ethnic/religious/gender/sexuality coding, erasure, contradictions, and many other things that can be pulled out and dissected in ~900 hours of a franchise made over 6 decades. (Keep adding examples if you want, since mine do not cover the whole spectrum of the franchise and barely even touch alien species that also have issues.)

Star Trek is undeniably made in a capitalist Hollywood production company, so white supremacy, heteronormativity, and dominant cultural tendencies usually end up dictating what gets put on air. Hollywood has a dominant thread of white supremacy throughout its history, so even intentionally trying to diversify staff and talent is difficult because of the systems feeding into Hollywood or other industries/institutions. There can also be a great deal of privilege working in the favor of successful artists - not always but something to consider.

Additionally, Trek presents itself as a post-scarcity, futuristic utopia, and sometimes things stick out to us if they don’t meld with our personal understanding of what that would look like.

I’m sure we’ve all heard a little about the old production schedules, long days, demanding schedules, rotating writers, rotating directors, etc etc. It has been proven that implicit bias can drive decisions, especially when people are busy. Even if the production isn’t explicitly motivated by these things, they seep into the work. The -isms and -phobias are sometimes reduced to characteristics of a person/piece of media, but it’s sometimes more useful to characterize actions instead of people since it allows better conversation about the topics. Sometimes it is intentional and explicit, sometimes it’s not. The intention does not affect the impact, so how a storyline or message lands on the audience/viewer is important. Science fiction in particular is a genre that makes social commentary, so by design it lends itself to deeper analysis.

We also can’t forget that the shows are products of their respective times, and a lot of what was shown was pushing against cultural boundaries. For the most part, the franchise has tried to explicitly be diverse, but they are bound to make missteps in other areas, intentional or not. No piece of media is perfect or above scrutiny.

Now, all of that said, there are many schools of thought for how to analyze media. I’m not gonna give a whole crash course in literary criticism but we can look at it from a continuum of different perspectives. We can wonder what the production meant when they made it/what happened off camera (author intentionality), we can draw from the piece itself (in universe), we can focus on how the media was received either in its cultural context or outside (reader response), or we can do some combination of the three. No media exists in a vacuum, so they all end up working together to make the work.

My main point is this: it is ok to pick your analytical perspective. You can chose to ignore the real-world contributions and intentionality when analyzing media. If people want to stay strictly in universe to come up with reasons why something did or did not happen, that’s ok. If people want to focus on what happened behind the scenes and how that affected the work, fine. If people are just focused on how it made them feel, also great. Just maybe don’t get all worked up because someone is analyzing media from a different viewpoint or someone has a different take than you do.

[powerpolyculeshowdown]

now i voted don,cathy, cosmo but its really weird seeing people claim theyre morally superior because road to el dorado is racist

like really makes me wonder if theyve watched singing in the rain if youre not gonna acknowledge the blackface in it 🙃

yeah people love double standards....

[quaalussy]

seated for avatar 2009. i havent willingly watched scifi in years but i have to watch it for class :P

[theemptyspacehelmet]

Permission to coin the phrase “hetero-hero.” noun. Definition: character archetype of the straight “ally” who is somehow loved by all queer people for giving the best love advice despite never having been through the queer experience and always knows what’s best for them and treats them in a totally non-infantilizing, non-fetishizing way. Similar to: White Savior.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

BOYS is it pink washing to be a safe country to travel to if your gay/trans?????

I found this one lol, I'm gonna shove it on the archive.

I admit I was looking at Palestine zines. intentionally.

but there was quite a few weirdo ones on the website I found this one on.

-pop

At least this one is a call to action in any way so no violence?

Weird pinkwashing hippies that make a lot of calls these lot

how many of these queer palestineans are actually white gays and lesbians who want to white savior

[tacticalgrandma]

Dimitri’s handsitting “i’ll be complicit in racism but i’ll be really sad about it :(” is pathetic. Be like Claude and poison your best friend’s brother about it